I remember one Herman & Katnip cartoon where Herman hides a double-barreled shotgun in a nickelodeon. The protruding barrels now resemble the machine's binocular viewer. Enter Katnip. He presses his eyes against both barrels, cranks the handle - and gets the full shotgun blast in both eye sockets. Realistic, blood-curdling scream. The impact sends him offscreen to the opposite wall, where he collides with a mounted moose trophy, knocking out its glass eyes. (I'm not making this up.) Katnip reacts in horror to the eyeballs he sees rolling around on the floor, ("My eyes, my eyes!!") and frantically screws them into his own eye sockets. ("I can't SEE! I'm BLIND!") Cue the identical cousin mice laughing hysterically in the foreground while Katnip runs off into the horizon, knocking into things. Iris out.
How many kids went home with nightmares after that? Funny thing is, they're so well animated. I know this is WAY off-topic, but I almost wish you'd do a post about Harveytoons, and explain why they're so adamantly, profoundly unfunny. My pal Joe Suggs in Atlanta sent me this analysis recently:
"I could write ten thousand words about Herman and Katnip and never capture the essence. The closest I can get is that these cartoons were made by people with no discernible sense of humor, imitating other cartoons they've seen but didn't quite get. Even as a small kid I grasped this, though they're actually much more entertaining to me as an adult. These are the only Golden Age characters who seem capable of genuine suffering. One almost expects them to retain injuries and lost body parts from short to short. What would make them absolutely perfect is if they were in German, with English subtitles."
Is Olive performing the Bangle's "Walk Like an Egyptian" for an unappreciative Popeye? (I can hear now Mae Questel squealing "way-oh-way-oh-way-aaa-way-oh...")
"but I almost wish you'd do a post about Harveytoons, and explain why they're so adamantly, profoundly unfunny"
I would be interested in a nice coffee table book on this very subject. Im sure we survivors of the Baby Huey Generation would support the healing this would promote among our damaged and wounded.
@Mike: You may be misremembering things a little bit. It sounds like you're referring to the 'Mouseum' short from 1956. I couldn't find the entire short online, but here's a very poorly rendered clip on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tg_v16kIcVc
Film school students should have to watch H & K alongside Laurel and Hardy and Chaplin and Chuck Jones. The gags in H & K are all there in a mechanical way, but absent any sense of comedy: no timing, personality, or warmth; no funny switches once the gag is set up.
I can imagine how frustrating it would have been to try to explain to those guys why Tom buzz-sawing down a two-hundred foot tall pine tree with his crotch and screaming the Bill Hanna scream the whole way (in "The Flying Cat") is funny, but just (say) hitting the cat in the back of the head with a rifle butt isn't. "....Vas is das? Bot ve hid der katze wid der gon, giff him konkussion, making him to vomit! Is big loff on him, jah?" "Yah, Fritz, is big loff on him! Pooey on katze! Den ve make him blind!"
On a side note, if you read the Frank and Ollie book on cartoon gags, this is apparently how all non-Disney shorts looked to them (other than maybe Harman and Ising). They didn't like "pain" gags in any form.
Better quit before I make good on my ten-thousand words threat.
@Johnathan: Yes, Mike is referring tot hat 1956 short. I actually think it'ds very funny. Sylvester, under Bob McKimson's direction, wasn't that much different than Katnip here, and I can easily imagine him doing the same thing.
BTW I rewatched it and it isd NOT a nickelodeon, Mike F. but an ELEPHANT trophy, and Herman TURNS Katnip's double-barrels around so that the bullets make with the U-turn. Other than that you remember right.. the ONLY remotely sick thing is that, like the 1962 Speedy and Sylvester, "Mexican Cat Dance" or "Chili Weatherr", the Sylvester as proxy-bull one, the mice act as a canned laughter track!!!!
28 comments:
Ah. And I thought it was Katnip's eye socket...
I remember one Herman & Katnip cartoon where Herman hides a double-barreled shotgun in a nickelodeon. The protruding barrels now resemble the machine's binocular viewer. Enter Katnip. He presses his eyes against both barrels, cranks the handle - and gets the full shotgun blast in both eye sockets. Realistic, blood-curdling scream. The impact sends him offscreen to the opposite wall, where he collides with a mounted moose trophy, knocking out its glass eyes. (I'm not making this up.) Katnip reacts in horror to the eyeballs he sees rolling around on the floor, ("My eyes, my eyes!!") and frantically screws them into his own eye sockets. ("I can't SEE! I'm BLIND!") Cue the identical cousin mice laughing hysterically in the foreground while Katnip runs off into the horizon, knocking into things. Iris out.
How many kids went home with nightmares after that? Funny thing is, they're so well animated. I know this is WAY off-topic, but I almost wish you'd do a post about Harveytoons, and explain why they're so adamantly, profoundly unfunny. My pal Joe Suggs in Atlanta sent me this analysis recently:
"I could write ten thousand words about Herman and Katnip and never capture the essence. The closest I can get is that these cartoons were made by people with no discernible sense of humor, imitating other cartoons they've seen but didn't quite get. Even as a small kid I grasped this, though they're actually much more entertaining to me as an adult. These are the only Golden Age characters who seem capable of genuine suffering. One almost expects them to retain injuries and lost body parts from short to short. What would make them absolutely perfect is if they were in German, with English subtitles."
:).
Wow. What fantastic toys!
Olive Oyl cannot resist Popeye. It goes against the laws of nature...
Popeye should put some calamine lotion on those mosquito bites.
The sailor man with terrible scurvy. I guess spinach isn't a cure all remedy!
Is Olive performing the Bangle's "Walk Like an Egyptian" for an unappreciative Popeye? (I can hear now Mae Questel squealing "way-oh-way-oh-way-aaa-way-oh...")
"but I almost wish you'd do a post about Harveytoons, and explain why they're so adamantly, profoundly unfunny"
I would be interested in a nice coffee table book on this very subject. Im sure we survivors of the Baby Huey Generation would support the healing this would promote among our damaged and wounded.
"What would make them absolutely perfect is if they were in German, with English subtitles"
If the magic of DVDs were to make this come true, a warning about convulsions and swallowing one's tongue would be required on the package.
I'm sure much hilarity could be had with "Kaspar der freundliche Judegeist"
So discolored, but yet so solid.
This guessing game is fun. Other people are missing out. :P
Holy crap, those are cool
Where do you find all these cartoon joys?
unbeliveble
Deitch Tom & Jerry= unfunny
@Mike: You may be misremembering things a little bit. It sounds like you're referring to the 'Mouseum' short from 1956. I couldn't find the entire short online, but here's a very poorly rendered clip on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tg_v16kIcVc
I'm with Mike F. Please do a Harveytoons post.
Film school students should have to watch H & K alongside Laurel and Hardy and Chaplin and Chuck Jones. The gags in H & K are all there in a mechanical way, but absent any sense of comedy: no timing, personality, or warmth; no funny switches once the gag is set up.
I can imagine how frustrating it would have been to try to explain to those guys why Tom buzz-sawing down a two-hundred foot tall pine tree with his crotch and screaming the Bill Hanna scream the whole way (in "The Flying Cat") is funny, but just (say) hitting the cat in the back of the head with a rifle butt isn't. "....Vas is das? Bot ve hid der katze wid der gon, giff him konkussion, making him to vomit! Is big loff on him, jah?" "Yah, Fritz, is big loff on him! Pooey on katze! Den ve make him blind!"
On a side note, if you read the Frank and Ollie book on cartoon gags, this is apparently how all non-Disney shorts looked to them (other than maybe Harman and Ising). They didn't like "pain" gags in any form.
Better quit before I make good on my ten-thousand words threat.
I'm thinkin' Popeye and Olive Oyl need to see a doctor.........
@Johnathan:
Yes, Mike is referring tot hat 1956 short. I actually think it'ds very funny. Sylvester, under Bob McKimson's direction, wasn't that much different than Katnip here, and I can easily imagine him doing the same thing.
PS That ending gag of "Mouseum" always made me laugh my ass off (sorry Mike)!
And I agree with Mike, Trevor, Bwanasonic, and anyone else wanting a book on Harveytoons (and its humor..)
Steve
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iR6KjNmN2BA&feature=feedrec_grec_index
you sir are my inspiration! my childhood belonged to you! I salute you John K. you are the real American hero!
You mean a Canadian-American hero. I just love Canadians!
NO TEEF
Hi Mike F, I found the gag that you meant
Click here!
Happy 20th anniversary http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2011/08/the-genius-of-doug-rugrats-and-ren-stimpy-20-years-later/243437/#.TkQ8BQ2yeOA.twitter
Ol' Popeye might need to get those dots on his arms checked out, might be carpal tunnel.
BTW I rewatched it and it isd NOT a nickelodeon, Mike F. but an ELEPHANT trophy, and Herman TURNS Katnip's double-barrels around so that the bullets make with the U-turn. Other than that you remember right.. the ONLY remotely sick thing is that, like the 1962 Speedy and Sylvester, "Mexican Cat Dance" or "Chili Weatherr", the Sylvester as proxy-bull one, the mice act as a canned laughter track!!!!
And
then
there's:this. Not eye based, but like the Herman and Katnip one, potentially emotionally upsetting.:)
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